Originally Posted by
riutzelj
... Help. I know i'll be replacing the washer by this weekend. Our appliance guy says that sears isn't making the control boards anymore, probably figured out it was a bad design since apparently this is where that model fails.
My understanding is that you should never wash your quilts in a front loading machine because the reduced volume of water per load is hard on your fabrics and stitches, esp. your stitches. I follow the recommendation that you should only use top loaders where you can control machine agitation, which is to say don't allow machine agitation at all on a quilt. Instead, the prescription is fill, soak, hand agitate, spin, rinse, hand agitate, and spin.
I bought a so-called heavy duty GE top loader that didn't have a center agitation paddle--hated it and took a real bath on it in my efforts to get rid of it. Next bought a heavy duty Speed Queen top loader. I still have it and it is large enough to wash my queen-sized quilts. I must say, though, that it doesn't seem to me to be as well made as older model Speed Queens, and I have had to replace the belts twice in 8 years. I am careful with this washer and I don't believe I overload the machine, although my husband may very sporadically. According to the ratings, this is the largest and best-performing top-loading washer on the market. All I can say to that is that it ain't what it used to be, but it is definitely better than most alternatives.